“Core Tips”
Why did all the scalpers disperse in just three days?
作者 | 陳法善
編輯 | 劉楊
After setting the alarm clock, pre-filling the delivery information, switching the 5G signal, and making preparations, Xiao Qiang also wanted to be a “scalper” and grab an iPhone Duo to earn the difference.
At 8 pm on October 16, iPhone Duo opened for pre-order. When he was about to place an order, he found that the Apple Store was stuck and unable to log in. It wasn’t until about an hour later that he squeezed into the payment page. At this time, the delivery time was already scheduled for late January 2027.
Before, Xiao Qiang would wait for “618” or “Double 11” to get a good price when buying mobile phones. This time, he was uncharacteristically thinking that he wanted to work part-time as a middleman and resell the goods to make the difference. Because the iPhone Duo is Apple’s first foldable screen phone, almost everyone on social platforms agrees that it will become the next hot item, and “you will make money if you grab it” became the consensus in those days. On the second-hand platform, the premium once exceeded 10,000 yuan, and you could earn at least several thousand if you resell it.
However, the plot did not go according to the script. After iPhone Duo officially went on sale on October 23, the market quickly reversed. The premium has quickly dropped to almost zero from the previous thousands or even tens of thousands of yuan, and the shipping price of some “scalpers” has even fallen below the official selling price.
From the frantic rush to the collapse of the market, is it still easy to make a wide foldable phone?
1. Start with a piece of film
The first thing that made the iPhone Duo’s belief in the premium price loose is a matte film.
On October 22, disassembly blogger Yang Changshun completed the “world’s first disassembly” of iPhone Duo during a live broadcast, tearing off the “nano black technology” frosted film on the surface of the inner screen. After being uncovered, the transparency of the screen was significantly improved, but the creases that were originally almost invisible also became obvious.
The barrage in the live broadcast room exploded instantly, and many people complained: They thought Apple had invented a black technology for removing creases, but it turned out that it relied on film application; why is a film worth more than a hundred dollars so expensive?
Apple later responded that it was a nano-texture surface layer, not an ordinary frosted film, and it could not be torn off under normal circumstances. The official price for replacing this layer separately after it is damaged is 398 yuan. The “nearly traceless” creases that Apple claimed at the press conference were largely visually weakened by this frosted film. After peeling off the film, the look and feel of iPhone Duo is not much different from the smooth screens of Huawei and Xiaomi.
Even the film itself has become a drawback. A user in Zhejiang told “Leopard Change” that four days after he bought his new phone, the grease marks left on the inner screen could no longer be wiped off. On the social platform, a user who grabbed the first launch said that he was used to using a translucent glossy screen, but his eyes felt uncomfortable when using a frosted screen. The screen was blurry and the colors seemed to be covered with a blur filter.
In addition, round after round of extreme tests put iPhone Duo under a magnifying glass. In the film and television hurricane evaluation, the iPhone Duo was first folded 10,000 times at room temperature and then 1,000 times at minus 20 degrees Celsius. Although the hinge is still smooth, the creases gradually deepen with time.
Even trickier is the inner screen “cracked door.” On social media, a Suzhou user posted a picture saying that after only four days of using his iPhone Duo, a black spot appeared on the hinge and a thick blue line diffracted to the right side of the screen. The Apple store where he picked up the product promised to replace it with a new one, but “the time is not yet certain, so I’ll have to wait for a phone call.”
Judging from the pictures posted by other users, black spots or green lines generally appear in similar locations. Some digital bloggers analyzed that the cracks are concentrated slightly below the hinge where the cable runs through. It is suspected that the central support rod was not fully lowered when the phone was shut down (iFixit’s disassembly report also has similar speculation), causing the bent screen to press on the rod, causing stress damage to the inner screen; Apple has not yet announced the specific reason.
After the “crack door” outbreak broke out, Apple officially admitted that “a small number of devices have internal screen problems” and reminded users to contact AppleCare to apply for a replacement without purchasing AppleCare+ first (man-made damage needs to be ruled out through testing). However, if it is accidentally damaged, it is different. The cost of purchasing two-year AppleCare+ for iPhone Duo is 2,599 yuan, plus the 628 yuan service fee required to replace the internal screen, the total user expenditure exceeds 3,200 yuan. And if you don’t buy AppleCare+ and replace the internal screen at your own expense, the cost will be 7,998 yuan, which is enough to buy a high-end domestic flagship mobile phone.
What makes users even more worried is that a large number of apps have not yet been adapted. On the day of release, after the unupdated WeChat was unfolded on the iPhone Duo, large black borders appeared around the inner screen, making it look like WeChat was floating in the center of the screen. Although WeChat updated the version that day, “iPhone Duo is not compatible” was still a hot search.
After a series of “rollovers”, combined with the ebb of hype and the gradual replenishment of supply, the premium of iPhone Duo fell rapidly, and some channels experienced price breaks on the second day after the launch of sales. On October 28, a seller in Shanghai quoted a price for the 256G version, which was only 50 yuan more expensive than the official website price. For the same version, a seller in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, offered a price that was 100 yuan lower than the official price.
A scalper also said that the 512GB and 1TB versions are more popular, with a premium of several hundred yuan, while the 256GB and 2TB versions are less popular and have almost no premium.
At the Wenzhou Vientiane City Apple direct-operated store, “Leopard Change” saw that two days before the launch, many “scalpers” gathered around the store entrance, chasing people coming in and out and asking “Do you want to sell it?” or “Do you want to buy it?” Because of the impact on the shopping experience, “scalpers” are frequently chased away by store security. But by October 26, there were no more “scalpers” in front of the store.
It should be noted that what was burst was mainly a speculative bubble, not terminal demand. The delivery schedule on Apple’s official website is still in late January 2027. Customer service said that many customers have canceled orders. Channel dealers also said that the first batch of buyers are mainly short-term speculators and the proportion of personal use is not high.
2. Domestic machines take the lead
Apple’s folding screen has been late for many years. Apple’s new CEO Ternus said that this is a wait for quality selection. In his view, early folding screens seemed “cheap and rough.” The reason why iPhone Duo waited until this year to go on sale was because he did not want to rush to release semi-finished products.
While Apple was still pursuing perfection in the laboratory, domestic manufacturers had already shipped millions of units to integrate the new wide-folding form and application ecology. The product definition of “wide foldable” was first proposed by Huawei, which focuses on sufficient use of the external screen and enjoyment of the internal screen. The first-generation Huawei Pura X has shipped approximately 1.5 million units (IDC caliber, as of the end of March 2026); the Pura
This is not a one-man show for Huawei. The “mid-folding” mobile phone 18 Fold launched by Xiaomi also chose a wide-screen ratio. About 36,000 units were sold on the first day of sales in September. According to @RD observation and prediction, as of the beginning of October, the cumulative sales of this model exceeded 100,000 units.
A few years ago, Apple often relied on experience polishing and ecological integration to set industry standards, and domestically produced machines would follow suit. Nowadays, the “wide folding” form is the first to be launched by domestic machines. After getting started with these two types of wide folding, many people feel that domestic machines are better to use. The above-mentioned users in Zhejiang said that Hongmeng Ecosystem’s multi-screen collaboration and application flow are smoother, and windows can be freely zoomed, opened, and dragged. Even if the app does not have a tablet version, it can be used on a large screen.
When the hardware advantage is no longer there, can iPhone Duo win back the victory through ecology? The reality is that there are still a large number of applications that have not yet been adapted to wide screens. Some users posted pictures showing that the pages of Douyin, “Honor of Kings”, “Genshin Impact” and other apps have been zoomed and suspended in the center of the inner screen, with thick black frames appearing around them. The most direct reason is that Apple did not release the Xcode 27.1 candidate version and open adaptation submissions until October 6. It was less than 20 days before it was launched. It will obviously take time for mainstream applications to complete the adaptation.
On the contrary, domestically produced wide foldable phones have taken the lead in software and hardware synergy by virtue of their first-mover advantage. Huawei uses parallel horizons, flexible layout, and free multi-window solutions to allow vertical screen applications to be split into left and right columns without changing the code. Xiaomi relies on ThePaper OS 4 to reconstruct the multi-tasking system. Xuanjie O3 provides computing power support for multi-tasking, superimposes optimization and adaptation for popular applications, and has gained a good first-sale reputation.
In addition, another advantage that domestically produced wide foldable phones lead is AI. The Bank of China iPhone is temporarily unable to provide complete AI functions, and the first batch of beta versions does not include Siri AI. On October 15, Apple Executive Chairman Cook confirmed in an interview with The Paper in Shanghai that the National Bank version of Apple AI will launch a beta version at the end of October, with the first batch including real-time translation, writing tools, photo clearing and other functions.
3. Another mission
Although the iPhone Duo still has many “slots”, it is not difficult to catch up with Apple’s software ecosystem and supply chain integration capabilities.
At the adaptation level, by April 2027, all newly launched or updated App Store applications and games must submit iPhone Duo adaptation screenshots, otherwise the review will fail, which is equivalent to turning adaptation into a required question, but it is only mandatory to submit screenshots, and in-depth adaptation is not required. Back then, when Apple launched the iPhone Nowadays, the maturity of Apple’s wide foldable ecology may also push “friends” to polish a better user experience.
Apple’s first folding screen chooses a wide folding form, which is equivalent to recognizing this product definition. According to SAG, in the global folding screen market, the proportion of wide folding shipments will increase from approximately 45% in 2026 to approximately 67% in 2027. At the same time, the benefits of wide folding have spilled over to wide straight boards. According to “Digital Chat Station”, the top five domestic manufacturers will launch new straight-panel machines in 2027, and all projects are currently approved and completed accelerated testing.
For many people, the performance of today’s flagship mobile phones is obviously excessive, and the user replacement cycle is constantly lengthening. IDC estimates that the average replacement cycle for domestic users will exceed 42 months in 2026, which is significantly longer than the 25 months five years ago. The appeal of pure hardware upgrades to consumers continues to decline. The wide folding and wide straight form have become one of the few highlights that stimulates replacement.
For the industry chain, this is a rare deterministic increase in consumer electronics. The stand-alone value of core components such as folding screen hinges, screen support plates, and ultra-thin vapor chambers is several times that of traditional candy bar machines. Although the first-generation iPhone Duo panels are exclusively supplied by Samsung Display, and domestic panels have temporarily missed this wave of dividends, Apple’s increased volume and establishment of standards can drive domestic components to make the pie bigger.
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